HARLEY-DAVIDSON’S 2025 SOFTAIL RANGE – “THAT ENGINE IS UTTERLY MENTAL!”

IMAGES BY MARK WATSON

Yeah, I said just that as I pulled up on the 2025 Low Rider S next to Harley’s lead-rider, Ben Foster. And then I started laughing. Then he started laughing. And there we were, laughing like hammered donkeys on the side of the road near Kiama.

This is what war does. And make no mistake, Harley is at war. Once again, just like in the good old days, Harley and Indian are at each other on the racetracks, and we are reaping the benefits. This kind of war is simply the best thing for motorcycle people. Racing improves the breed. Of course it does. All the stuff the factories try that works (and is applicable to road-riding), eventually makes its way into a production bike.

 

So, Harley and Indian take the US-based King of the Baggers race series very seriously. The current champion is our own Troy “The Boss” Herfoss, who won it handsomely last year astride Harley’s direct competitor. And that will just not do, as far as Milwaukee is concerned.

On top of that, a few years back, Harley’s competitor built a grand tourer that was quite a bit better than what Harley was offering in that niche. And once again, Milwaukee was having none of that. Last year it launched a hugely re-vamped touring line-up. Not only were we offered the marvellous CVO Street Glide and CVO Road Glide, the effort and upgrades Harley put into those CVOs also found their way into the base Street and Road Glides. Gone was the traditional “glacial pace” of improvement. This was a big step forward.

 

The same level of improvement was being promised on the 2025 line-up of Softails – and six models live in this family.

They all share the new and improved Milwaukee Eight 117-cube engine – with four-valve cylinder heads, oval intakes, and low-profile intake-valve seats Harley first introduced last year on the abovementioned touring models. But for the Softail range, this engine now comes in three different iterations.

There is a new aluminium intake manifold that provides a more direct air-path, and Harley has also re-routed the engine oil from its frame-mounted radiator and runs coolant through the heads, via a system that weighs less than the one they use in the touring models. The rider reaps the benefit in hot weather.

Starting with the Street Bob and Heritage, those 117-cubes offer 156Nm and 95 horses. Next along the food-chain are the Fat Boy and Breakout. Their 117-cube donk offers 168Nm and 104 horses. And then there are the two Low Rider variants – the S and the T. The T is the one with panniers for touring. Thet both share the High Output variation of the 117-cube mill, and it produces 173Nm and 114 horses, with a redline that’s been increased to 5900rpm.

The result is quite amazing, and most certainly more noticeable in the High Output models. They even sound better. There’s a great intake sound, and the stock pipes make a pleasing sonorous rumble. Harley has retained the two-into-two pipes on the Fat Boy and Breakout (because bad-arse custom, bitches! And because these pipes are righteously replaced within hours of purchase), but it has gone for two-into-ones on the Street Bob, Heritage and both Low Riders.

Just quietly, as good as the two-into-twos sound and look, a two-into-one exhaust system works better. It always has. And yes, back in the day, we did sacrifice performance for looks and loudness because that is what attracted girls and made us feel like gods. We knew better, but we did not care.

 

So, what else is new? The headlights and blinkers are all LED now, and switchblocks are all new, as are the dials. Then there are rider aids, of course. Everybody’s doing this…presumably to defeat Darwinism. All the new Softails come with Cornering ABS, Cornering Traction Control, and Cornering Drag Torque Slip Control. Great stuff. But until the masses work out none of that is attached to the front wheel, Darwin is still the boss. Oh, and you get Tyre Pressure monitoring, as well.

What else? Ride modes! All changeable on the fly via a simple button on the right switchblock, no less. Rain (or Who Cares? as it’s known among my people), Road (works fine and is a reasonable choice for commuting or just laying down freeway miles with a flat torque curve and normal throttle response), and Sport – and this is where it gets eye-opening on the High Output engine.

Both Low Riders are now legitimately hilarious. The engine improvements and throttle-response are noticeable across the range, but there is some authentic hot-rod shit going on with the Low Riders’ High Output donk. They rev and rev hard, and the front-end gets eye-openingly light when you’re hard on the throttle coming out of low-gear corners. That High Output engine pulls very hard, right through the rev-range and feels unlike any stock Harley engine I have ridden before. That lazy, smiling 45-degree V-twin is now grinning like a murderer.

 

The other great change is in the suspension. This is also very noticeable, and makes sense, even though Harley riders, myself included, used to think otherwise.

Here’s the thing. The Softails always kinda handled…um, uniquely. If you were an idiot, you complained about it. These were the same idiots who used to bemoan their minimal ground-clearance. No amount of reasoning worked on these people. You either understood that Softails were not Ducatis, or you didn’t. You either partied with strippers or you didn’t. You either went home with her body glitter covering your face, or you…well, you get my drift.

But none of this stopped Harley riders from trying to improve the handling. Progressive springs! Yes! Hell yes! That’ll do it! We all fitted them, front and rear, and then told ourselves it was better. But it wasn’t. We were just saying that. The thing didn’t really handle any better, and it just made the ride harsher, because the spring got stiffer as it compressed – and there’s not much travel in the suspension anyway. Your spine was hammered relentlessly. And remember, your feet are forward on the pegs, so you can’t use your legs to assist the shock absorbers in their failure.

Harley even started fitting them to the bikes, thinking this is what the people wanted. But not anymore. Straight-rate springs are now in all the models. And this has transformed them. There is certainly room for improvement – and Harley does offer an Öhlins option – which I would certainly fit. But the feel of the suspension is certainly better and way less harsh over bumps.

So which one of the six did I love the most?

 

The Breakout. It has been my favourite Harley ever since it came out. It is hands-down, to my eyes, the best-looking, pure outlaw, chick-wrangling, needs-apehangers, bad-arse sumbitch motorcycle there is. It isn’t the best-handling. It isn’t the most powerful. It’s just the one that says the things I want a Harley to say.

I did love the Low Riders. They are the hot rods. They’re the ones that go around corners better. They’re the ones you can do crazy mongrel-shit on. One of them even has hard luggage, so you can go do that crazy mongrel-shit in faraway towns where people don’t know you.

 

I dug the Street Bob, but I did not like the riding position. It is the lightest of them all, and steers nicely, but it jacks my knees up too high for it to be comfy. I’m just too big for it. But because it’s a Harley, a set of forward controls is just a shelf away from fixing that.

The Fat Boy? Well, that was always the least-interested-in-going-around-corners Harley, and it still is. It is certainly a handsome brute of a thing, but is entirely uninterested in being pushed hard into bends. I do not blame it. You don’t ask wrestlers to dance ballet. That fat 16-inch rear-tyre and fat 16-inch front-tyre look the goods, and its whole demeanour and profile appeal greatly to me. But now and again, a man needs to get a wriggle on. Maybe swing through some bends. He may be running from the cops, or rushing to get home and transfer more stripper body-glitter to himself. And the Breakout, which still has that fat, black 16-inch donut on the back wheel, but a nice 21-inch hoop on the front, just gets around corners better.

The Heritage? I used to have one. I threw away all the stuff that made it a Heritage. There’s nothing per se wrong with it, and it is a very comfortable, easy-going, gentle-handling tourer. Precisely what it is meant to be. And it looks precisely as it should, with the screen (now darkened across the bottom half so it doesn’t look as naff as it used to), and driving lights – all classicy and heritagey. Which works for some people. I ain’t one of those.

 

I am very pleased Harley has made the changes and improvements it has made to the Softail range. Yes, those improvements had to be made. And they are very noticeable – especially on the Low Riders.

Here’s the thing some people just don’t seem to get. And Harley cops a fair amount of criticism from these people. If Milwaukee was to make huge structural changes to its Softail range, it would very quickly stop appealing to a customer base that remains intensely loyal to the brand.

Harley therefore has to make its improvements in acceptable-to-the-customer-base chunks, and these are often small, or just cosmetic. In this case, and in the case of last year’s tourers, the changes have been huge, but still within acceptable to-the-customer-base parameters. They all still feel like Harleys have to feel in order to remain Harleys. They must always feel like this.

Milwaukee does this, while still trying out and developing new stuff that breaks well away from what its traditional customer base demands, like the Pan America and the Sportser S, both of which utilise the very different 1250cc Revolution Max engine. So Milwaukee ain’t scared to try new things. But it still has to please the vast majority of its loyal customers by doing what it has always done – just making what that base expects and demands a bit better each year.

 

And in the last two years, a lot, lot better.

 

The faithful will rejoice, while those new to the brand will be surprised. Me? Both of those things happened to me.